If any of you have ideas for new guests on Mormon Stories, please post them here. If they’re aligned with the new direction, great. If not, that’s great too.
What’s even MORE helpful is if you’re able to contact these people in advance and ask them if they’re willing to come on the podcast. That could save me a TON of time.
Thanks for everything. More soon.
I know this does not fit necessarily with the new direction, but I would like to here from Newel Bringhurst on the life of Fawn Brodie.
But unfortunately I don’t have any contacts.
I would love to hear an interview with Carol Lynn Pearson. I don’t know her but I’ll be happy to give her a nudge on her website.
Hi John;
It would be great to hear you interview Michael Quinn, President Steven Veasy, John Hamer, Dan Vogel or even Elder Marlin K. Jensen (we can live in hope on that one). How about talking to LDS members involved in humanitarian efforts around the world? Bob McCue would be a good interviewee too I bet. Natasha Helfer Parker from the Mormon Therapist site might be a great guest too. A follow-up to the Bushman/Palmer podcasts would be good to hear.
Another thought John, how about having Robert Millett and Becky L. Savage or Susan D. Skoor on the programme?
This might be too personal, but it would be really cool to interview your wife and hear her side of the story of you finding out about controversial church history and having a crisis of faith etc. You’ve mentioned once or twice that she’s been supportive, but it would be really interesting to hear how she took things and what in your relationship made it strong enough to get through all that. Again, I’d totally understand if you don’t want to be super public about your own family, but just thought I’d throw it out there.
I like what’s been recommended so far, including your ideas from a couple weeks back.
I vote for Lavina Fielding Anderson, Claudia Bushman, Terryl Givens, Scott Kenney, Grant McMurray, Van Hale, Armand Mauss, Devery Anderson, Bryan Waterman, Jana Riess, Edward Kimball, Peggy Fletcher Stack, Stanford Cazier, Elna Baker, and Martha Sonntag Bradley. I’ve tried to list successful people with interesting perspectives, or who have grappled with complex faith issues.
I’d love a show about the debate on the Origin of Man between B.H. Robers, Joseph Smith and Others.I would find that very interesting. However, I’m not sure who you can interview on that
I would love to hear you interview a biblical expert about all the problems, inconsistencies, lack of evidence, outright fraud, etc. in the Bible. Bart Ehrman (wrote Jesus Interrupted) would be a great candidate, but if he is not available, anyone attending a liberal religious seminary would probably work. I am tired of people holding the Mormon church to such high standards of evidence regarding its foundational claims, yet turn around and give the Bible a “free ride.” When I started studying Christian history, it was even more shocking and disturbing than what I learned in my study of Mormonism.
Kurt and Barbara Hanks (Ex-mormons) wrote an E-book titled “Collapse of Belief–Rebuilding Stability When What Defined You Is Gone”. The book can be downloaded at https://www.collapseofbelief.com/ From their website: “The Collapse of Belief is a guide to developing discernment. It is most useful when a person’s political, economic, social, religious or personal belief system crashes. It takes the reader through a step-by-step process to see beyond the surface events and read between the lines of communication.”
Kurt was a Art Professor who co-taught a BYU Amercian history class for foreign students for eight years, using a process he calls “Relational Learning” (everything is related to everything else in some way). “The key to the system is to extract the core principle or idea from a situation and then link it, or relate it, to multiple contexts.” An interesting thing happened while he taught this class. Students who took this course left BYU in record numbers. “BYU has a strong undercurrent of control, and as the students began to recognize this hidden agenda, they didn’t feel comfortable in this atmosphere anymore.” The history professor he co-taught the class with eventually quit teaching the course because he was unwilling to follow “Relational Learning” to its obvious conclusion: that the church-run school as well as the church itself, were not what they claimed to be.
I think an interview with Kurt and Barbara Hanks would be a great addition to Mormon Stories.
I recently read a book on Introverts in the Church dealing with introverts in the Evangelical Community. I would like to see how the LDS community is towards those who on Myers Briggs are introverts, those who tend to think first and then maybe speak. When I was in the LDS church I always found it difficult in Fast Meetings. Sometimes in class whenI made a comment I was greeted with blank stars from many who did not know what I was talking about. I feel it would be an interesting topic
I’d love to hear any stories from people about how to make the ward an interesting and fun place. I’ve heard stories occasionally from people about really amazing ward activities and service events, but in my experience I’ve been only in very dull wards where the idea of fun is cleaning the building on Saturday and going to the temple together. Perhaps you could have someone on who was a bishop in a ward that went from dull to super fun. I’ll look around for someone and let you know. All I can think of at the moment is the opposite example: my parents always talk about how much fun the ward was until *bishop x* took over and got rid of anything that wasn’t directly related to reading scriptures and praying.
Not sure it goes with your new approach, but I really enjoy reading the Keepapitchinin Mormon History blog. The author sounds like an interesting guide—and he might have a unique perspective on how he deals with historical weirdness.
I would love to hear an interview with the very intelligent Ms. Jack Meyers from Clobberblog.
She has a unique interfaith marriage as an EV who attended BYU and snagged a return missionary. (who sacrificed temple marriage for her)
Here’s a little info. from her blog:
“I’m 27 and I have a BA in Classical Studies from Brigham Young University with a minor in Hebrew. I’m currently living north of Chicago where I am pursuing my MA in History of Christianity in America at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with a target graduation date of May 2011. I consider myself a practicing evangelical and a political conservative.
I am married and I have one child, a daughter born in June 2006.
This blog was created in July of 2008 to focus on a number of topics of interest to me, with an emphasis on Mormon-evangelical interfaith subjects.”
John,
Here are some people I would love to hear from. First would be Terryl Givens because of his conservative religious position while also being open to some of the criticisms of Mormonism. One person mentioned this, and I will second it, is to interview Bart Ehrman who has done work with members of BYU and is an expert on the New Testament and Early Christianity (he has done interviews for several other podcasters and YouTube channels, so you may be able to pull it off). I notice a lot of people are talking about the science vs. religion controversey and a good person on that field would be Rev. Michael Dowd (wrote the book Thank God for Evolution). He may be hard to get for an interview as he is receiving chemo treatment for cancer, but he has done lectures for Christian churches, Universalists, and atheists. I love his book and his philosophy on religion and your listeners may like him as well. I don’t see him having any issue with discussing his views on a Mormon podcast because he is very tolerant of all religious traditions (his wife is an atheist, enough said).
My vote would be for someone from CES such as Randal Wright:
“Randal A. Wright received his Ph.D. in family studies from Brigham Young University. He has worked for the Church Educational System for many years and is currently a CES Coordinator in Austin, Texas. He is the author of several previous books including: Families in Danger: Protecting Your Family in an X-rated World and The Case for Chastity: Helping Youth Stay Morally Clean. He has been a frequent speaker for the Campus Education Week and Especially for Youth programs. He and his wife, Wendy, are the parents of five children.”
Also I’d love to hear an interview with Jeff Ricks from postmormon.org.
While she’s not as scholarly as your normal guests, I enjoyed reading Elna Baker’s “The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance”. She’d be fun to have on.
See https://www.elnabaker.com/book.html
Carolyn Jessop, Author of Escape
Jon Krakauer, Author of Under The Banner of Heaven
Also, how about someone from FMH?
I would kind of like to hear from the Tanners, or from D. Michael Quinn. Anyone who has been excommunicated would be pretty interesting. By the way, as a non-(not ex)-Mormon, I really like your podcasts.
As you may know, Bill Shunn wrote a yet to be published memoir about being arrested for terrorism as a LDS missionary in Canada: https://www.shunn.net/memoir/
I think his would be an interesting story to add to Mormon Stories.
I second d bodell’s request. Would love to hear an interview with Elna Baker….. Pretty please with sugar on top……..
This suggestion goes under the mental illness section of the New Direction. I’d like to hear from Jesse Ellis, the co-founder of http://www.clergybridge.com
I’d like to hear about the unique predicament of our Judges in Israel when they are, at times, involuntarily asked to be mental illness/addiction/abuse counselor-du-jour. I’m sure they feel blind-sided and lost with the highly complex situations in which they find themselves.
I would love to hear an interview with a former General Authority, just what is it like, some neat experiences, spiritual or otherwise
Lavina Fielding Anderson and Lyndon Lamborn
How about a higher up who’s responsible for designing/planning the latest mormon.org ad campaign? That has the potential to be interesting.
Dear John,
I would be very interested in hearing from a slightly less known Mormon scholar: Camille Hawkins. She is 90 now and has been on the boards of Dialogue, Sunstone, John Whitmer Historical Association at different times and comes out of southern Alberta where her father was a polygamous expat who served as as Stake President for 30 continuous years and before that as counselor to Hugh B Brown. She’s not terribly mobile and lives in Eastern Oregon but does know her way around Skype. I think that you might be surprised by what you find up there.